[T]he "grim assessment" did not come from General Pace. It
came solely from the Associated Press, and the AP made the
assessment grim by simply ignoring the explanation and the
other numbers that were given by General Pace.
This is how news is reported from Iraq: bad news is cherry-
picked, deprived of context, and characterized in the most
negative way possible for the explicit purpose of
providing cover to those in Congress who are trying to
bring about our defeat.
A Grim Assessment By the Associated Press
Power Line
The Associated Press reported this morning on current operations in Iraq, describing a number of successes in which insurgents were captured or killed. But at the AP, good news never comes unalloyed. The AP adds this commentary:
<<< U.S. military officials also have been signaling for weeks that improvements in Iraqi security forces had not lived up to expectations-especially in the national police, which is widely believed to be infiltrated by Shiite militiamen.
On Friday, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands U.S. troops south of Baghdad, said it would take until the summer of 2008 to consolidate recent gains in his area, which controls land routes into the capital from the east and south.
Last week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, said the number of combat-ready Iraqi battalions able to fight independently has dropped from 10 to six in recent months despite an increase in U.S. training efforts.
Those grim assessments follow years of optimistic public statements from the Pentagon about the progress in Iraqi security forces and have fueled calls in the Democratic-controlled Congress to begin withdrawing from Iraq. >>>
Note how the AP runs interference for the Democrats in Congress: the Pentagon has been optimistic before, but that optimism hasn't been borne out. And the Democrats are responding rationally to "grim assessments" by military officials.
I was curious about the "grim assessment" that ostensibly came from General Pace last week. If it really were true that the fighting ability of Iraqi forces were declining, that would be a significant fact. So I tracked down General Pace's comments to see whether they were being reported fairly by the AP.
The AP referred to a Defense Department "media roundtable" by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, on July 13. The transcript is here (link below). This is the colloquy about the number of Iraqi units able to operate independently:
<<< And I guess, Mr. Secretary, if you could address what you say to Congress, who seems to think that the Iraqis are actually backsliding, because the numbers we had as early as, I think, March is that there 10 battalions operating independently, and it seems as though here that has either diminished or at least not increased. And so what do you say to Congress about how this isn't working so far and why it hasn't?
And can you be a little bit more specific about the numbers?
GEN. PACE: Yeah, I can tell you the numbers that are in my head. Last March, I think I said there were -- I did say and there were 10 battalions that were operating independently, and I think at the time I said there were another 88 operating in the lead. Today, the numbers I saw were six battalions operating independently and another almost 100 that are operating in the lead.
And so the question becomes, okay, how do you go from 10 to six, and why those changes? And the answer is, quite simply, that as units operate in the field, they have casualties. They consume vehicles and equipment, and need to come out of the line and be resupplied, just like our own units. So the fact that a number may be changing within a very narrow band shouldn't be of over -- overly of concern.
On the other hand, we do want to see the number go into double figures and start moving more toward more Iraqi units being able to operate on their own and more units that work operating side by side with us, moving into the lead. It is a valid thing to chase, but we shouldn't put too much weight on minor variations in those numbers.
SEC. GATES: I -- this subject hasn't come up in my conversations with members on the Hill. But if it had, I'd have said what he said. >>>
So the decline from 10 battalions to six results from the fact that Iraqi units have been fighting, as a result of which they need to be resupplied. This is a "minor variation" that is not "overly of concern." Meanwhile, the number of Iraqi battalions capable of operating in the lead, with American troops in a supporting role, continues to grow steadily, now up to around 100.
So the "grim assessment" did not come from General Pace. It came solely from the Associated Press, and the AP made the assessment grim by simply ignoring the explanation and the other numbers that were given by General Pace.
This is how news is reported from Iraq: bad news is cherry-picked, deprived of context, and characterized in the most negative way possible for the explicit purpose of providing cover to those in Congress who are trying to bring about our defeat.
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